


The Measure of a Man

by tvconnoisseur



Category: Prince Caspian (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvconnoisseur/pseuds/tvconnoisseur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At night he could feel the phantom blood upon his hands, hot and sticky, the smell of seared flesh tearing him from slumber.  Once, he told Miraz of his nightmares—surely, he too would dream in shades of red—but Miraz simply laughed in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Measure of a Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzy_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/gifts).



> If you've never watched Prince Caspian from General Glozelle's perspective, I highly recommend it. I had never really considered him much as a character (too much in love with my Pevensies), but upon rewatch it adds a wonderful layer to the movie that just makes it all the more worthwhile. Thank you dizzy_fire for opening my eyes and happy holidays!

On his necklace—ten generations old, from when the Telamarines first conquered Narnia—hung a man on a cross, with ten small beads between each large bead. There was a prayer associated with it—perhaps many prayers given so many beads—but those sorts of mythological pleas were lost throughout the ages. Whatever the prayers were, Glozelle suspected their words and secret magic had died with his mother. She was a keeper of an old faith, one from a different land and a different age. She would hold the necklace in her hands and caress each bead, praying in quiet, breathless words.

After years of hearing her, Glozelle thought he would remember the prayers, but like the language of his childhood, it was lost in his mind. The only line Glozelle could remember was the last line. The words would spill from her mouth, hot and heavy: _lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil._

There was much evil in Narnia. His mother told him so. “My dear, darling _Glozelito_ ,” she would murmur, fingers through his curls. “There are dark days ahead. They will try to lead you into darkness, but you shall not let them. You shall be strong. Strong against evil.”

His mother spoke in platitudes and parables, superstitions and silliness. There were rules to follow and a story for every rule.  She would weave stories about Narnians and speak of them with the conviction only young boys did before they relinquished such fairy tales.

He was one of those young boys once upon a time.  He delighted in stories of the evil White Witch and the kings and queens of old.  He especially loved the stories about Aslan:  a magic talking lion who ruled with kindness.  Aslan even came back from the dead— _resurrected_ , his mother said, to save us all—to defeat the White Witch.  In their childhood imaginings, Glozelle would play Aslan and his sister the White Witch.  He would pounce and she would scream and his father would punish them both.

His father had no tolerance for fairy tales.  He was a hard man who was a soldier first and a father second.  His wife was a dowry and a title, his son a poor excuse for an heir, and his daughter a price to be paid to the best suitor.  He would mock Glozelle for reading books and listening to the ridiculous dribble that would spew from his wife’s mouth.  A boy without a sword was a boy without worth.

As Glozelle grew older and his father’s words bore more weight, he humored his mother more than he believed her, but when it came to the evil around him, he knew she did not lie. He had seen it with his own eyes and soon would do it with his own hands. After all, his father had been a soldier and so Glozelle too would be a soldier.

His mother had been adamantly against her son joining the Telamarine forces, so much so that even his father could not make her acquiesce.  Glozelle entertained thoughts of being a scholar and filling himself up with prose and knowledge.  For the briefest of moments, he would believe that he truly would embark on a bloodless existence.

Four days before his thirteenth birthday, his mother died.  She had been sick, so sick that even her most fervent prayers did nothing.  And yet she kept praying.  The night before her death, she called Glozelle to her bedside.  “For you,” she murmured, thrusting something into his palm.  He looked down and it was her necklace, glossy white beads tangled with thread.  She ran her hand over his forehead, his heart, and either shoulder.  “I bless you as I love you, child.  Believe and you shall never be lead astray.”

He was enrolled in the army before grass had grown on her grave.

***

He had been a small boy with a soft body and white hands and the army did not take kindly to him. Training was rough and difficult and he lacked the natural ability to be a swordsman. It took skill and cunning and he had neither.  All he had were faith and words, as well as an unrelenting sense of obedience that had been burned into him by both his father and mother.

At night he would brace himself against tears and clutch at his mother’s necklace, which he wore under his clothes for fear of ridicule.  Sometimes at night when he grew truly desperate, he would even try praying as he mother had before her death, but the words were muddy in his memory and he felt no comfort in his heart.  Whatever she believed in did not believe in him.  So he stopped praying and instead rocked himself into a dreamless sleep.

His first kill was an accident. During standard training while he sparred with his friend Armando, he cut too close and before he realized it, Armando grasped at his throat, blood spurting through his fingers and trickling from his mouth. Glozelle had dropped his sword and run all the way to the river where he promptly vomited. From then on, his fellow soldiers regarded him with dark, appraising eyes: not only had he been so bad at a broadsword that he killed one of their own, but he was too weak of will to react like a man.

The first time he killed on purpose was under the orders of Lord Miraz. Miraz was the second-born of King Caspian IX and because of that, had become both his brother’s second-in-command and the best and most ruthless swordsman in Narnia. Glozelle did not know why Miraz had taken such an interest in him—a prince taking an interest in the runt of the litter, from a lineage that was respected but not powerful—but he did with gusto and without mercy. They ran drills until Glozelle’s arms buckled under the weight of his sword and his chest was bruised and his skin had baked brown in the sun.

It wasn’t just swordplay and drills, however. Miraz valued bloodlust and ambition. He started small: Glozelle would hunt bigger and bigger beasts until the sight of blood no longer nauseated him. Glozelle would sometimes think of the stories of his childhood, of speaking beavers and witty foxes, but those were just stories and these were just animals, dumb and brutish.

For months he trained and soon he could fell any man who challenged him, even Miraz himself after a drink or two. The prince was satisfied with his efforts, and came up with a test: Pass, and Glozelle would be his second. Fail, and he would be discharged from the army with highest dishonor.

Glozelle was to assassinate a lord who had the audacity to vote against Miraz in the council. “He is so old he speaks of _Narnians_ ,” Miraz spat out. “His land should be run by those fit of mind and body.” Glozelle's voice, never one to protest, did not speak now.  This would be his moment:  to leave the boy he had been behind and become the man he was to be.

And so, despite hesitation and a heaviness in his heart, Glozelle entered the house at that time that is neither night nor morning with a dagger clutched in his grasp.  As he raised it above his head to plunge into the lord’s heart, Glozelle thought he heard a lion’s roar.  He stumbled, but his aim ran true.  Life spilled from the lord’s body and by sunrise, Miraz had made Glozelle his right hand.

The second time he killed was easier, as was the third and fourth time. As the number grew—countless, really, yet he knew the exact number—it became easier on his hands, but not his soul. At night he could feel the phantom blood upon his hands, hot and sticky, the smell of seared flesh tearing him from slumber.  Once, he told Miraz of his nightmares—surely, he too would dream in shades of red—but Miraz simply laughed in his face.  “You are like an old woman,” Miraz mocked. “Morality for you is in myths and magic. You must see it as I do, for Narnia is meant to be ruled by the thirstiest of Telamarine blood and pity must be given to those who think otherwise.”

In that way, he feared Miraz.  Glozelle could see the thirst for power in Miraz's gaze and saw how dangerous that thirst would be if King Caspian's iron grasp ever slipped.  But despite his fears, Glozelle was loyal to the prince.  Miraz had made him a soldier, stronger and quicker and cleverer than all others. Glozelle himself was feared.  And for that, Miraz had earned his allegiance.

Glozelle's father was proud of him for the first time in his entire life and his sister was awestruck by his connection to the royal family. “Friends with a prince,” his sister would say, a sigh in her heart. “How I wish I could marry a prince!”

The one person who he knew would never delight in his success was dead, and yet his conscience refused to be scrubbed clean.  His mother’s voice would slice through his thoughts— _deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil_ —and his resolve would crack, but never falter.  He told himself that his mother was as Miraz described:  an old woman of myths and magic, both useless. His mother had given him nothing except for a necklace now dulled against the inside of his armor.  From that nothing, Miraz had made a man.

***

"Do you ever dream that you are more than what this world offers you?” Miraz asked one night, admiring his reflection in his blade. “That you are meant to be greater because you are stronger and more cunning than every other Telamarine?”

“I have never thought of such things, my lord,” Glozelle responded, because he hadn’t. As far as he was concerned, life was as it was. _Que será, será_ , his mother’s voice whispered to him before he could swat it away. _Whatever will be, will be._

Miraz laughed a sharp laugh that shook Glozelle to his core. “No, you wouldn’t.” Miraz turned his gaze to Glozelle, his eyes colder than the White Witch. “When I become ruler, I will make you my general, Glozelle.” It was not a question or an offer. “And I will make your sister my queen.”

Glozelle felt his chest constrict and he looked down so Miraz could not see his face. “It would be an honor, my lord,” he answered. “If only such a thing would come to pass.”

After silence had its moment between them, Glozelle looked back to Miraz. The prince’s eyes were back on his own reflection in his sword, a slow smile crossing his lips. “If only.”

For the first time in years, Glozelle reached for his mother's beads beneath his tunic and prayed.


End file.
